UC-NRLF 


Cents 


Historic  Strikes 


AND 


Their    Settlement 


-ALSO • 


Fundamentals 


Street-car  Control 


LEIGH   H.   IRVINE 


THE  CALKINS  NEWSPAPER  Sv> 

24  Clay  Street 
SAN   FRANCIS* 


PART  I 

HISTORIC  STRIKES 

AND 

THEIR  SETTLEMENT 


BEING    AN    ACCOUNT    OF 

ABOR'S    GREAT    BATTLES    IN    AMERICA, 
HOW  THEY   BEGAN   AND   ENDED, 
WHAT  SOLDIERS  AND  CITI- 
ZENS   HAVE    DONE 
TO    MAKE 
PEACE 


A  REVIEW  OF  ANCIENT  LABOR  TROUBLES 

BY 

LEIGH  H.  IRVINE 


THE  CALKINS  NEWSPAPER  SYNDICATE 

24  CLAY  STREET.  SAN  FRANCISCO 

1907 


,:  •'  • '  THE  MASSES  SUFFER. 

The  fates  of  the  great  majority  have  ever  been,  and 
doubtless  still  are,  so  sad  that  it  is  painful  to  think  of  them 
Unquestionably  the  existing  type  of  social  organization  is 
one  which  none  who  care  for  their  kind  can  contemplate  with 
satisfaction;  and  unquestionably  men's  activities  accom- 
panying this  type  are  far  from  being  admirable.  The  strong 
divisions  of  rank  and  the  immense  inequalities  of  means  are 
at  variance  with  that  ideal  of  human  relations  on  which  the 
sympathetic  imagination  likes  to  dwell;  and  the  average  con- 
duct, under  the  pressure  and  excitement  of  social  life  as  at 
present  carried  on,  is  in  sundry  respects  repulsive.  Herbert 
Spencer,  on  page  4  of  "A  Plea  for  Liberty." 


NOT    SOCIALISM. 

There  is  no  Socialism  in  recognizing  the  plain  fact  that 
the  gifts  of  fortune  are  not  distributed  in  this  world  accord- 
ing to  merit.  There  is  no  Socialism  in  declaring  that  the 
rich,  by  reason  of  their  riches,  have  responsibilities  towards 
the  poor;  or  that  the  poor,  by  reason  of  their  poverty,  have 
claims  upon  the  rich.  Nor  is  there  any  Socialism  in  holding 
that  the  State  has  responsibilities  toward  the  poor,  and  that 
the  law  ought,  when  necessary,  to  assert  the  reasonable  claims 
of  poverty,  and  enforce  the  reasonable  duties  and  obligations 
of  wealth.  John  Rae,  page  9  of  " Contemporary  Socialism." 


BISMARCK'S  VIEWS. 

If  you  do  not  cry  out  about  State  Socialism  whenever 
the  State  does  anything  for  the  laborer  in  the  way  of 
Christian  charity— then  you  will  destroy  the  charm  of  social 
democracy.  Bismarck,  quoted  on  page  421  of  Rae's  "  Con- 
temporary Socialism." 


DANGER  AHEAD. 

It  was  de  Toqueville's  theory  (' 'Democracy  in  America") 
that  "free  institutions  run  continual  risk  of  shipwreck  when 
power  is  the  possession  of  the  many,  but  property — from 
whatever  cause — the  possession  of  the  few.  With  the  ad- 
vance of  democracy  a  diffusion  of  wealth  becomes  almost 
a  necessity  of  State." 


INTRODUCTION. 

IN  1902  I  hurriedly  visited  Yuma,  Arizona,  where  I  met 
for  the  first  and  last  time  the  eminent  C.  Osborne  Ward, 
author  of  "Ancient  Lowly. "  The  great  savant  lay  dying, 
one  of  his  comprehensive  literary  plans  unfinished. 

As  a  young  man  he  had  studied  with  the  immortal  Dar- 
win, had  worked  with  Schliemann  among  the  ruins  of 
ancient  Troy,  and  had  served  our  Federal  Government  with 
distinction  for  a  quarter  of  a  century,  his  field  being  in 
the  Department  of  Labor.  His  "Ancient  Lowly"  had  then 
been  recognized  for  many  years  as  the  ablest  book  on  early 
social  conditions,  and  it  stands  to-day  as  the  monumental 
achievement  of  a  long  and  scholarly  life,  much  of  which  was 
devoted  to  original  investigation  in  history  and  economics. 

As  I  had  devoted  many  years  to  both  field  and  academic 
service  in  the  study  of  social  and  economic  problems,  and 
had  collaborated  with  Mr.  Ward  in  an  undertaking  only 
then  fairly  started,  he  appointed  me  his  literary  executor 
to  carry  out  some  of  his  plans,  these  to  be  designed  in  part 
from  notes  which  he  gave  to  me  as  he  neared  the  end. 

During  the  extensive  research  incident  to  carrying  out 
the  departed  scholar's  unfinished  volumes — not  yet  com- 
pleted by  me — I  have  made  a  careful  study  of  both  ancient 
and  modern  labor  conditions.  It  is  for  these  reasons,  in 
part,  that  I  venture,  not  immodestly  I  hope,  to  offer  this 
brief  history  of  some  of  the  important  battles  of  organized 
labor,  together  with  a  slight  account  of  the  struggles  of  the 
lowly  classes  of  antiquity. 

In  these  days  of  vexatious  labor  troubles,  many  thought- 
ful citizens  wonder  whether  the  present  economic  system  is 
about  to  be  overthrown  by  violence.  Thousands  of  prudent 
men  and  women  fear  for  the  future,  feeling  that,  as  one 
writer  has  said,  "Foreign  hordes  of  anarchists,  masquerad- 
ing as  labor-unionists,  are  organizing  to  destroy  American 
liberty." 

A  careful  study  of  the  industrial  wars  of  thirty  years 
convinces  me  that  the  red-shirted  anarchist,  loud-mouthed 
and  blatant,  is  as  much  despised  by  the  honest  leaders  of 

409614 


labor  as  by  the  conservative  "captains  of  industry "  who 
own  the  great  bulk  of  the  wealth  of  the  land. 

Despite  many  regrettable  evils  in  the  unions,  and  though 
violence  and  bloodshed  have  often  accompanied  strikes,  it 
will  be  found,  on  the  whole,  that  both  employer  and  em- 
ployee have  grown  steadily  more  liberal  and  tolerant  than 
they  were,  for  example,  in  1877,  also  that  the  wiser 
national  leaders  of  labor  federations  know  that  violence 
spells  defeat. 

The  public  at  large,  that  great  body  of  non-combatants 
that  always  suffers  more  than  the  belligerents,  has  in  recent 
years  made  insistent  demands  for  peace,  and  the  spirit  of 
conciliation  has  often  pervaded  the  ranks  of  the  warring 
forces,  even  against  their  will,  society  at  large  demanding 
with  increasing  emphasis  that  the  duelists  in  the  "affairs  of 
honor "  between  employer  and  employee  must  desist  from 
clogging  the  wheels  of  industry  while  they  do  slaughter  in 
the  public  streets.  For  these  reasons,  rather  than  because 
of  the  handling  of  rioters  by  police,  militia,  and  Federal 
soldiers,  the  lesson  of  history  reveals  the  victories  of  society, 
the  great  umpire,  the  court  whose  mandates  neither  capital 
nor  labor  dare  permanently  to  defy.  Vast  progress  has  been 
made  during  the  era  between  the  "Molly  Maguire"  out- 
rages, for  example,  and  that  of  the  Roosevelt  Arbitration 
Board,  which  settled  a  gigantic  coal  strike  that  threatened 
to  assault  the  very  foundations  of  government. 

In  the  ancient  mines  of  Laurium  the  laborer,  who  was 
believed  to  have  no  soul,  was  chained  to  his  task  in  under- 
ground pest-holes  where  each  day's  work  only  enlarged  his 
tomb.  In  these  modern  days  of  closer  relationship  between 
the  hired  man  and  his  employer  each  battle  settled  by  calm- 
ness and  the  spirit  of  conciliation  increases  the  respect  of 
the  contestants  for  each  other  and  enlarges,  not  the  tomb 
of  the  slave,  as  in  ancient  Laurium,  but  the  field  of  life  and 
opportunity  for  the  sons  of  toil. 

LEIGH  H.  IRVINE. 

24  Clay  Street,  San  Francisco,  May,  1907. 


ANCIENT  LABOR  TROUBLES. 

I  have  but  one  lamp  by  which  my  feet  are  guided,  and 
that  is  the  lamp  of  experience.  I  know  of  no  way  of  judging 
of  the  future  but  by  the  past. — Patrick  Henry. 

THOSE  who  believe  that  labor  troubles  are  of  modern 
origin  belong  to  the  class  that  deny  that  the  earth  ro- 
tates on  its  axis.  It  is  well  known  that  the  primal  condition 
of  man,  so  far  as  we  have  gone  in  historic  research,  was 
that  of  master  and  slave,  of  brutality  and  rebellion. 

The  workers  of  antiquity  were  involved  in  frequent  and 
bitter  strifes  that  resulted  from  unions  for  the  betterment  of 
the  masses.  Laborers  of  the  Roman  Empire,  under  Con- 
stantine,  had  about  thirty-five  unions,  and  seven  hundred 
years  before  the  Christian  era,  according  to  Plutarch, 
Mommsen,  and  Ward,  trade-unions  existed  in  great  num- 
bers. Numa  Pompilius  granted  the  unions  freedom  from 
hostile  legislation,  and  Tarquin  and  Claudius  were  •  unable 
to  stamp  them  out.  Cicero  led  the  aristocrats  in  denouncing 
labor  organizations,  but  they  were  not  put  down.  Solon,  the 
great  law-giver  of  Athens,  recognized  and  made  laws  for 
the  unions.  The  Solonic  Dispensation  is  famous  in  history. 

Artisans  in  the  building  trades  maintained  their  organi- 
zations during  six  hundred  years  at  Rome,  and  for  about  as 
long  in  Attica  and  other  parts  of  Greece.  Organization  per- 
meated almost  every  branch  of  industry,  including  the  circus 
performers,  gladiators,  and  fortune-tellers.  Pagan  image- 
makers  objected  to  Christianity  because  it  would  destroy 
the  trade  of  godsmithing,  which  employed  an  army  of  skilful 
idol-makers. 

The  first  great  historic  strike  was  that  of  Moses  and  the 
Jews,  known  as  the  Exodus.  This  was  strangely  like  modem 
strikes.  The  Hebrews  sought  in  vain  to  induce  the  Egyptians 
to  modify  the  hard  tasks  imposed  upon  them.  Many  bloody 
conflicts  took  place  between  masters  and  servants,  but  Moses 
organized  the  workers  and  achieved  freedom.  Moses  ordered 
not  far  from  a  million  Hebrew  workers  to  throw  down  their 
implements  of  toil  and  march  away.  It  was  physical  and 
economic  as  well  as  religious  causes  that  induced  the  two 
great  brothers — Moses  and  Aaron — to  petition  King  Pharaoh 
for  relief  from  overwork,  bad  food,  and  injustice.  The  kin? 


O  HISTORIC     STRIKES 

was  sour  and  insulting,  saying,  "Wherefore  do  ye  lead  the 
people  from  their  work?"  History  records  the  fact  that 
the  great  strike  of  Moses — a  rebellion,  in  fact — led  up  to 
the  Law  of  Moses,  for  the  author  had  then  become  both 
statesman  and  deliverer. 

Another  noted  strike  grew  out  of  the  Eleusinian  Mys- 
teries, held  at  Eleusis,  about  ten  miles  from  Athens.  It  was 
customary  for  the  Eleusinian  devotees  to  give  up  to  their 
festivities  nine  days  every  five  years.  They  were  insulted 
and  assaulted  by  crusading  slaves  and  laborers,  who  struck 
against  exclusion  from  religious  rites  in  the  Eleusinian  Mys- 
teries. The  strikers,  descended  from  generations  of  skilful 
artisans,  had  built  the  magnificent  palaces  and  temples  of 
Greece.  As  their  skill  had  been  recognized  and  celebrated, 
they  felt  that  their  personality  and  their  union  should  not 
be  spurned.  Their  outbreak  was  the  forerunner  of  battles 
that  brought  greater  freedom  to  the  laborers  of  those  eras 
of  bloodshed  and  brutality. 

Another  great  battle  was  led  by  Nabis,  a  genius  and 
leader  of  workingmen.  He  fought  the  Ephori,  who  were 
five  secret  despots  of  ancient  Greece.  The  Ephori  trained 
young  aristocrats  in  the  art  of  assassinating  laborers,  teach- 
ing the  hot-blooded  aristocrats  to  be  ready  at  any  moment, 
with  daggers,  to  butcher  the  naked,  half-starved  and 
unarmed  working  classes  in  sufficient  number  to  keep  down 
the  labor  forces  to  a  schedule  made  by  the  Ephori.  Nabis 
made  an  ancient  French  Revolution  of  the  situation,  invented 
engines  of  devilism — stabbing  manikins,  broadaxes,  death- 
traps— and  when  his  labor  hordes  and  he  had  finished  their 
bloody  work  the  Ephori  had  sunk,  never  to  rise  again.  Nabis 
careered  207  years  B.  C. 

One  of  the  most  wonderful  uprisings  of  ancient  labor  was 
413  B.  C.,  when  20,000  chained  slaves  working  in  the  silver 
mines  of  Laurium,  where  men  and  women,  painted  and  naked, 
seldom  saw  the  light  of  day,  bolted  for  the  Spartan  gar- 
rison, and  aided  the  brave  Spartans  in  their  twenty-seven 
years'  war  against  the  Athenians.  This  strike  was  a  heavy 
blow  to  the  Athenians,  who  not  only  lost  the  slave  miners 
and  armor-makers,  but  beheld  their  former  slaves,  rewarded 
by  new  masters,  fighting  against  them  bitterly  in  the  war 
that  defeated  and  humbled  Athens.  This  strike  cost  Athens 
her  prestige.  But  Laurium  furnished  yet  another  strike. 


HISTORIC     STRIKES  7 

The  worker  in  the  Laurium  silver  mines — B.  C.  133 — was 
the  lowest  kind  of  a  slave.  He  was  usually  a  prisoner  of 
war.  The  mines — thirty  miles  from  Athens — were  foul  sub- 
terranean caverns  in  which  the  naked  and  painted  laborer 
was  chained  and  put  to  work  himself  to  death  under  the 
direction  of  savage  masters  who  had  leased  the  slave  from 
the  Empire. 

One  day  the  striking  miners  killed  their  overseers, 
robbed  the  armories,  and  took  the  town.  They  laid  waste 
the  country,  but  were  finally  defeated  by  Heraklitos,  the 
mayor,  "when  the  usual  brutalities  of  wholesale  crucifixion 
ensued  and  nearly  all  the  miners  were  put  to  death. ' ' 

At  Latium — 194  B.  C. — a  strike  of  slaves  was  caused  by 
a  lockout.  Combining  with  the  labor  slaves  of  the  city,  a 
horde  of  degraded  and  impoverished  agricultural  workers 
got  up  a  strike  during  a  gala  day  when  the  inhabitants  of 
Setia,  a  village,  were  about  to  witness  gladiatorial  contests. 
A  traitor  betrayed  the  strikers,  whereupon  Merula,  the 
praetor,  led  the  trained  troops  of  Rome  into  the  field,  and 
two  thousand  strikers  were  put  to  death. 

There  were  many  bloody  strikes  hundreds  of  years  before 
as  well  as  after  Christ.  One  is  a  typical  example  of  con- 
ditions. On  the  island  of  Scio  (ancient  Chios),  seven  miles 
from  the  coast  of  Asia  Minor,  slavery  existed  in  diabolical 
forms.  About  two  hundred  and  fifty  years  A.  D.  a  slave 
named  Drimakos  led  a  number  of  deserters  to  mountain 
fastnesses,  where  he  became  their  king.  The  rich  Chians 
were  defeated  in  trying  to  capture  the  slave  leader  and  his 
men. 

In  a  conference  with  the  city  magistrates  Drimakos  in- 
duced them  to  sign  a  treaty.  He  said:  "What  we  want  is 
subsistence,  no  more;  but  we  will  never  again  submit  to 
drudgery  or  bondage. "  The  compact  was  lived  up  to  until 
the  Chians  plotted  to  have  Drimakos  murdered,  whereupon 
the  great  leader,  hearing  of  the  plot,  induced  his  favorite 
young  man  to  anticipate  the  Chians  in  their  desire  for  his 
head.  He  said:  "Son,  to  him  that  bringeth  my  head  the 
Chians  offer  money  and  freedom.  I  have  lived  long  enough; 
thou  art  dear  to  me,  therefore  thy  duty  is  to  cut  off  my 
head,  take  it  to  them,  receive  thy  reward,  return  home,  and 
be  happy." 

Reluctantly  the  young  man  obeyed,  but  Drimakos 's  band 


8  HISTORIC     STRIKES 

ravaged  the  country,  tortured  the  Chians,  and  built  a  monu- 
ment to  Drimakos,  their  hero. 

Prominent  among  the  great  battles  of  ancient  labor  is 
that  wherein  the  immortal  Spartacus  led  the  strike  of  the 
gladiators'  union,  saying:  "If  ye  are  men,  strike  down 
yon  guard,  follow  me,  and  gain  the  mountain  passes.  If 
ye  are  beasts,  stand  there  like  fat  oxen  waiting  for  the 
butcher's  knife."  This  speech  is  supposed  to  have  been 
made  about  75  B.  C. 

Aided  by  slaves  and  unions  Spartacus  dealt  many  hard 
blows  to  Rome,  showing  himself  a  brave  general  and  a 
genius,  exceedingly  humane  for  his  age.  Dissensions  and 
jealousies  among  his  followers  probably  resulted  in  his 
undoing.  After  many  notable  victories  that  terrified  Rome 
from  74  to  70  B.  C.,  Spartacus  and  most  of  his  men  were 
slaughtered  in  a  battle  unwisely  forced  into  by  his  restless 
followers.  Six  thousand  of  his  men  escaped,  but  they  were 
captured  and  crucified  along  the  Appian  Way.  Workingmen 
were  then  persecuted  with  great  severity  until  the  doctrines 
of  Christ  came  to  teach  the  brotherhood  of  man. 

Florus  says  Spartacus  died  like  a  Roman  emperor,  killing 
scores  and  falling  with  his  body  so  completely  cut  to  shreds 
that  it  was  never  identified.  The  Romans  then  gave  no 
quarter,  but  killed  sixty  thousand  workingmen  "who  died 
in  a  defeat  that  caused  the  chains  of  labor  to  be  more 
securely  riveted  for  ages. " 


STRIKES  IN  THE  UNITED  STATES. 

In  the  year  1881  there  were  471  strikes  in  the  United  States, 
and  in  1900  there  were  1779.  Between  the  years  1881  and  1900 
there  were  22,793  strikes.  During  this  era  the  strikes  ordered 
by  labor  organizations  culminated  thus:  Succeeded,  52.86  per 
cent;  partly  succeeded,  13.60  per  cent;  failed,  33.54  per  cent. 
Of  the  strikes  not  ordered,  55.39  per  cent  failed. — Census 
Report «. 

The  history  of  strikes  during  the  last  half  century  has 
accentuated  four  facts:  (1)  The  losses  to  the  strikers  have 
been  much  exaggerated.  The  permanent  gain  from  a  successful 
strike  often  outweighs  the  temporary  loss  of  all  strikes,  in- 
cluding the  failures.  The  real  injury  is  the  disarrangement 
of  industry  and  its  effect  on  the  consumer.  (2)  With  the 
growth  of  unionism  there  has  been  a  distinct  improvement  in 
the  conduct  of  strikes.  Violence  and  bloodshed  are  now  less 
common  than  formerly.  (3)  The  oldest  unions  approve  of 
strikes  only  as  a  last  resort.  *  *  *  Unionism  has  been 
on  the  whole  a  conservative  force.  (4)  The  outcome  of  a  strike 
is  largely  dependent  on  the  state  of  public  opinion,  and  the 
strike  itself  is  no  longer  held  to  be  a  matter  of  private  concern 
between  the  employer  and  the  workmen.  The  coal  strike  of 


HISTORIC     STRIKES  9 

1902  was  won,  and  the  New  York  Subway  strike  of  1905  was 
lost,  almost  entirely  because  the  issues  were  so  clear  that  the 
general  public  sentiment  favored  the  strikers  in  the  one  case 
and  opposed  them  in  the  other. — Professor  Seligman,  of  Co- 
lumbia University,  pages  439  and  44O  of  Principles  of  Economics. 

OF  THE  many  thousands  of  strikes  that  have  disturbed 
the  public  peace  of  the  United  States,  or  parts  of  it, 
within  the  last  thirty  years,  only  a  few  have  been  of  that 
far-reaching  character  and  general  scope  to  warrant  their 
classification  as  of  historic  importance. 

Though  it  is  common  to  hear  all  sorts  of  predictions  of 
general  revolution,  if  one  chances  to  be  in  the  vortex  of  a 
local  labor  storm,  the  truth  is  that  the  thousand  or  two 
strikes  that  embroil  employers  and  employees  each  year 
throughout  the  United  States  are  mostly  of  local  signifi- 
cance, though  they  may  show  the  existence  of  a  widespread 
economic  disease. 

Glancing  rapidly  at  old  strikes  in  America,  that  of  the 
bakers  of  New  York,  in  1741,  is  probably  the  oldest  of  which 
we  have  any  record.  It  was  followed  by  disturbances  of 
some  importance  in  Philadelphia,  in  1796,  and  again  in  1798. 
The  shoemakers  were  the  workers  involved,  and  they  called 
their  battle  a  'turnout.'  This  strike  lasted  ten  weeks;  it 
was  for  an  increase  of  wages,  and  it  was  partly  successful. 

One  of  the  most  notable  of  the  early  strikes  was  that  of 
the  sailors.  It  occurred  in  New  York  in  1803.  The  sailors 
marched  and  forced  others  to  join  them  in  their  demand  for 
more  pay.  They  were  pursued  by  constables,  arrested,  and 
lodged  in  jail.  Their  strike  failed. 

In  1805  the  shoemakers  of  Philadelphia  went  on  a  six 
weeks'  strike  for  increased  wages.  Though  they  were  prose- 
cuted for  conspiracy,  there  is  no  record  of  their  conviction, 
and  there  is  evidence  that  they  won  their  point. 

In  November,  1809,  the  cordwainers  of  New  York  struck, 
and  for  the  first  time  the  disturbance  was  called  a  strike, 
They  were  defeated.  It  was  they  who  invented  the  word 
'scab/  which  they  then  applied  to  non-union  men. 

During  1817  at  Medford,  Massachusetts,  Thacher 
Magoun,  a  shipbuilder,  precipitated  a  strike  by  abolishing 
the  grog  privilege  from  his  shipyard.  "No  rum"  signs 
were  plastered  all  over  his  works,  whereupon  the  men  re- 
belled, but  they  finally  gave  in,  and  a  ship  was  finished  with- 
out the  use  of  liquor.  This  is  probably  the  first  strike  and 


10  HISTORIC     STRIKES 

the  last  ever  instituted  for  reasons  that  would  please  a 
prohibitionist. 

The  year  1835  was  fairly  free  from  labor  troubles,  though 
five  hundred  mechanics  in  Boston  struck  for  a  ten-hour  day, 
as  did  a  few  hundred  men  in  a  score  of  mills  at  Paterson, 
New  Jersey. 

The  stonecutters  of  New  York  struck  during  the  same 
year  for  an  increase  of  wages,  and  for  regulation  of  piece- 
work. It  is  interesting  to  note  that  during  this  time  the 
merchants  of  Schuylkill  pledged  themselves  to  employ  no 
laborers  except  such  as  would  agree  to  work  from  sunrise 
until  sunset.  During  the  same  year  there  was  a  strike  in  the 
Philadelphia  coal  yards.  About  this  time  several  branches 
of  workmen  in  Philadelphia  marched  the  streets  with  ban- 
ners, demanding  that  they  be  compelled  to  work  "from  six 
to  six  only." 

About  this  period  there  were  various  strikes,  some  suc- 
cessful, of  carpenters,  tinplate  and  sheetiron  workers,  cord- 
wainers,  tailors,  tailoresses,  bookbinders,  folders,  and  others. 
The  master  bookbinders  resolved  to  increase  women's  wages 
to  $3  a  week,  declaring  less  than  that  sum  "inhuman  and 
oppressive. ' ' 

There  was  no  time  or  inclination  for  strikes  during  the 
Civil  War,  but  from  1870  on  to  1877  there  was  considerable 
trouble.  Coal  miners,  railroad  employees,  and  others,  strove 
hard  to  get  more  pay. 

Carroll  D.  Wright,  late  United  States  Commissioner  of 
Labor,  found  that  there  were  1741  strikes  and  lockouts 
between  the  years  1741  and  1880.  Of  that  number  only  316 
succeeded.  One  hundred  and  fifty-four  were  compromised, 
and  583  completely  failed.  In  438  cases  reports  are  not  to 
be  obtained.  In  1089  cases  the  contention  was  over  wages. 
In  1880  there  were  610  strikes,  but  prior  to  that  there  had 
not  been  to  exceed  eighty  or  ninety  a  year.  Mr.  Wright 
thinks  that  statistics  will  show,  when  finally  compiled,  that 
there  has  been  a  decrease  in  the  total  number  of  strikes 
during  the  years  following  1900. 

The  First  Great  Modern  Strike. 

The  first  of  modern  historic  strikes  was  one  of  momentous 
importance  and  serious  culmination.  It  was  on  the  Balti- 
more and  Ohio  Railroad,  at  Martinsburg,  West  Virginia, 
and  news  of  its  progress  caused  great  alarm  in  the  public 


HISTORIC     STRIKES  11 

mind,  for  the  many  outrages  of  the  anarchistic  organization 
known  as  the  "  Molly  Maguires,"  in  the  anthracite  coal 
regions  of  Pennsylvania,  had  caused  many  persons  to  fear 
that  the  Molly  Maguires,  working  in  secret  with  deadly 
purpose,  meant  to  kill  the  rich,  destroy  property,  and  bring 
about  ' '  the  dreadful  equality  of  the  unequal. ' '  The  Maguires 
had  been  very  active  in  the  perpetration  of  tragedies  during 
the  late  sixties.  In  fact,  however,  the  Molly  Maguires  never 
started  an  open  strike.  They  were  terrorists  and  des- 
peradoes. 

Coming  back  to  the  first  historic  strike — that  on  the 
Baltimore  and  Ohio  system — the  immediate  cause  of  the 
trouble  was  a  cut  of  ten  per  cent  in  wages,  coupled  with 
irregular  employment,  long  runs,  the  separation  of  men  from 
their  families  by  having  ' layoffs'  at  inconvenient,  expensive, 
and  distant  points,  and  some  other  grievances,  such  as  with- 
holding men's  pay  for  three  or  four  months.  It  is  easy  to 
imagine  the  bitterness  that  such  abuses  engendered. 

The  state  militia  at  Martinsburg  and  Pittsburg  sympa- 
thized with  and  refused  to  fire  on  the  strikers.  At  Cincin- 
nati, Toledo,  St.  Louis,  Syracuse,  Buffalo,  Chicago,  and  else- 
where there  were  riots.  This  strike  wore  itself  out,  but 
better  conditions  followed  for  both  employer  and  employee. 

Another  remarkable  strike  was  that  on  the  Pennsylvania 
Railroad  in  1877.  After  the  panic  of  1873  the  road  reduced 
wages,  and  again  in  June,  1877.  The  employees  of  the  roads 
having  terminals  at  Pittsburg  formed  the  Trainmen's  Union 
and  decided  to  strike  at  noon,  June  27.  Though  it  involved 
many  roads  and  branches,  the  storm  center  was  at  Allegheny 
City  and  Pittsburg.  Owing  to  poor  organization  and  the 
work  of  a  traitor  who  informed  the  Company  what  the  men 
were  doing,  this  strike  did  not  become  a  very  bloody  one. 
On  July  19,  however,  the  storm  broke  in  earnest.  Though 
the  trainmen  engaging  were  not  authorized  by  the  Train- 
men's Union,  and  though  that  organization  was  not  to  blame, 
yet  the  mobs  increased,  the  strikers  increasing  in  number 
and  violence.  On  the  20th  .of  July  they  had  reached  to  the 
number  of  five  thousand,  and  on  the  21st  they  gave  battle 
to  the  troops  of  Pennsylvania  infantry.  The  guns  of  the 
militia  were  seized,  the  bayonets  twisted  off,  and  the  troops 
did  not  have  any  power  over  the  mobs.  Twenty-two  persons 
were  killed  by  shots,  stones,  or  volleys  from  the  troops. 


12  HISTORIC     STRIKES 

When  the  troops  rested  for  food  the  mobs  formed  again, 
and  as  the  rioters  had  by  that  time  broken  into  gun  stores 
and  armed  themselves  they  were  prepared  for  an  earnest 
fight.  Cars  were  burned,  the  roundhouse  was  set  on  fire, 
and  a  field-piece  was  obtained  by  the  mob.  Attacks  were 
frequent  until  the  23d.  Despite  the  soldiers  and  a  citizens' 
committee  cars  were  fired,  thugs  and  thieves  fell  in  line  as 
camp-followers,  and  before  the  end  was  in  sight  sixteen 
hundred  cars,  one  hundred  and  twenty-six  locomotives,  and 
all  the  shops  and  buildings  of  the  Company  had  been  de- 
stroyed. Tracks  were  torn  up  or  ruined  by  fire.  The  damage 
reached  $5,000,000,  and  a  judgment  for  $3,592,789  was 
rendered  against  the  county  of  Allegheny.  The  last  of  this 
debt  was  paid  by  the  county  in  1906. 

The  Telegraphers'  Battle. 

The  next  great  strike  was  a  quiet  one  compared  with  the 
one  just  described.  It  was  the  revolt  of  the  telegraphers,  in 
1883.  The  men  wanted  the  cessation  of  Sunday  work  with- 
out pay,  wanted  eight-hour  days,  and  the  equalization  of 
pay  between  men  and  women.  A  demand  was  also  made 
for  increase  of  wages.  This  strike  failed,  lasting  from  July 
19  to  August  23,  and  the  employees  lost  a  quarter  of  a  million 
dollars. 

The  Gould-System  Strike. 

In  1885  and  1886  there  was  a  great  strike  on  the  South- 
western or  Gould  System  of  railways.  The  first  outbreak 
was  at  Sedalia,  Missouri,  March  7,  1885,  but  on  the  17th  of 
March  work  was  resumed. 

In  March,  1886,  the  Knights  of  Labor  ordered  a  strike 
on  the  Gould  System  because  a  foreman  prominent  in  the 
order  had  been  discharged.  For  nearly  a  month  the  business 
of  the  road  was  paralyzed,  and  the  strike  was  declared  off. 
The  Company  would  not  thereafter  treat  with  its  men, 
except  individually.  The  strike  was  therefore  renewed  on 
April  5,  but  its  backbone  had  been  broken,  the  public  was 
not  with  the  men,  and  they  lost. 

Homesteaders  Kill  Pinkertons. 

The  next  great  battle  was  in  July,  1892,  when  much 
trouble  arose  between  the  Carnegie  Steel  Company  and  its 
men  at  Homestead,  Pennsylvania.  No  agreement  could  be 
reached  regarding  wages^  and  on  June  30  the  Company 


HISTORIC     STRIKES  13 

closed  its  works  and  discharged  its  men.  The  men  for  the 
most  part  were  members  of  the  Amalgamated  Association 
of  Iron  and  Steel  Workers,  and  though  the  immediate  ques- 
tion then  at  issue  involved  but  a  few  of  the  Carnegie  work- 
men, yet  the  Amalgamated  affiliation  caused  the  trouble. 
The  union  men  resolved  to  prevent  the  opening  of  the  works 
with  non-union  men. 

On  July  4  the  union  men  prevented  the  sheriff  and  his 
deputies  from  guarding  the  works  and  aiding  non-union  men 
to  work.  Later  two  barges  loaded  with  Pinkerton  detectives 
approached  on  the  Ohio  River.  The  strikers  hid  behind 
piles  of  steel  billets,  from  which  they  fired  on  the  detectives 
and  prevented  them  from  landing.  Though  armed  with 
Winchester  rifles,  the  Pinkertons  were  prevented  from  land- 
ing. They  were  again  and  again  driven  to  their  boats,  many 
being  killed.  This  was  on  July  5. 

On  July  6  the  strikers,  having  obtained  a  brass  cannon, 
commanded  the  barges.  Another  force  of  a  thousand 
strikers  got  a  cannon  and  took  up  a  position  on  the  opposite 
side  of  the  river,  where  a  breastwork  of  railroad  ties  was 
thrown  up.  The  boats  were  fired  on  for  hours,  but  they 
were  protected  by  steel  plates,  and  many  barrels  of  oil  were 
thrown  into  the  river  in  an  attempt  to  fire  the  boats.  The 
Pinkertons  waved  a  flag  of  truce  and  surrendered.  Seven 
Pinkertons  had  been  killed,  twenty-three  wounded.  On  their 
march  through  the  streets,  after  surrender,  the  survivors  of 
the  Pinkertons  were  treated  with  much  abuse. 

On  July  10  the  Governor  sent  the  entire  force  of  the 
militia  to  Homestead,  and  on  the  12th  Homestead  was  placed 
under  martial  law  and  peace  was  restored.  Congress  investi- 
gated the  affair,  but  no  legislative  action  ever  resulted.  The 
strike  was  not  declared  off  until  November,  1892.  It  was 
one  of  the  bitterest  of  all  labor's  wars. 

The  Pullman  Strike  of  1894. 

There  is  now  a  general  belief  among  labor  leaders  that 
the  great  Pullman  strike,  ordered  May  11,  1894,  might  have 
been  avoided  by  the  exercise  of  good  judgment.  The  reason 
for  this  decision  is  that  the  original  controversy  involved 
men  who  were  not  railway  employees,  and  that  the  American 
E  ail  way  Union,  a  transitory  sort  of  organization,  which  had 
won  a  victory  over  the  Great  Northern  Railroad,  erred  in 
taking  the  Pullman  employees  into  its  membership.  It  should 


14  HISTORIC     STRIKES 

be  said  that  the  A.  R.  U.  did  not  advise  the  strike,  but  it 
felt  that  it  had  to  stand  by  the  local  Pullman  men  in  their 
battle. 

In  anticipation  of  a  lockout  of  the  Pullman  men  the 
A.  R.  U.  ordered  the  strike,  boycotted  Pullman  cars,  and 
involved  the  country  in  a  great  strike.  The  American  Fed- 
eration of  Labor  refused  to  order  a  sympathetic  strike,  but 
the  A.  R.  U.  carried  on  the  battle  alone,  with  a  great  ac- 
companiment of  riots,  murder,  and  other  crimes.  United 
States  troops  were  here  and  there  on  the  scene  to  protect 
Federal  property,  particularly  at  Chicago.  Altogether 
nearly  fifteen  thousand  troops  were  engaged,  not  to  quell 
the  strike,  but  to  protect  property. 

The  A.  R.  U.  numbered  about  one  hundred  and  fifty 
thousand  members  during  the  Pullman  strike,  and  the  con- 
troversy assumed  an  intensely  bitter  form,  the  Union  hold- 
ing practically  that  the  public  had  no  rights  in  the  contro- 
versy, and  that  the  Union  might  paralyze  business  if  neces- 
sary to  maintain  its  existence.  It  should  here  be  said  that 
the  courts,  not  the  army,  broke  this  strike,  which  ceased 
about  July  15.  Injunctions  against  the  strikers  were 
numerous  in  the  Federal  courts. 

The  railroads  lost  $5,000,000  in  earnings,  the  strikers  at 
Pullman,  numbering  3100,  lost  $350,000  in  wages,  and  100,000 
or  more  employees  of  roads  centering  at  Chicago  lost 
$1,500,000  in  wages.  Bradstreets  puts  the  public  loss  at 
$80,000,000.  The  A.  R.  U.  attempted  to  destroy  the  great 
railway  brotherhoods  in  retaliation  for  their  failure  to  give 
aid,  but  the  A.  R.  U.  itself  perished,  while  the  brotherhoods 
survive,  stronger  than  ever,  being  recognized  and  respected 
by  railroad  managers. 

The  Anthracite  Strike. 

One  of  the  marvelous  results  of  conciliation  is  seen  in 
the  anthracite  coal  strike  of  1900,  which  resulted  in  an 
increase  of  ten  per  cent  in  coal  miners'  wages.  The  coal 
barons  settled  for  political  and  business  reasons,  but  felt 
sour  and  vindictive.  For  these  reasons  there  was  good  tem- 
per for  a  big  battle  in  1902,  when  the  United  Mine  Workers 
of  America  asked  for  an  increase  of  wages  and  a  decrease 
of  time.  Really  there  was  a  deeper  grievance.  The  men 
wanted  recognition,  but  the  operators  were  firm  in  with- 
holding it. 


HISTORIC     STRIKES  15 

After  many  failures,  through  conferences  and  otherwise, 
one  hundred  and  forty-seven  thousand  miners  threw  up  their 
jobs  and  were  idle  from  May  12  to  October  23,  1902. 

The  coal  mining  companies  were  short  $46,000,000  in  coal 
receipts  during  the  strike,  the  men  lost  $25,000,000  in  wages, 
and  $1,800,000  was  spent  by  mine  workers  throughout  the 
United  States  for  the  relief  of  their  striking  brethren.  Rail- 
road companies  probably  lost  $50,000,000  in  freights. 

Despite  the  Union's  protest  against  violence  and  appeal 
for  peaceful  measures,  there  were  boycotts,  murders,  and 
general  violence. 

On  October  3  President  Roosevelt  arranged  a  conference 
of  the  coal  barons  and  the  principal  officers  of  the  Mine 
Workers  of  America,  but  nothing  definite  was  done.  This 
caused  great  apprehension  in  business  circles,  and  there  was 
widespread  fear  of  grave  trouble,  such  as  the  bread  riots 
that  have  often  occurred  in  England. 

Suddenly  the  operators  asked  the  President  to  appoint  a 
commission,  pledging  themselves  to  abide  by  its  decision. 
The  union  miners,  on  request  of  the  President,  consented  to 
abide  by  the  award  of  the  Presidential  Commission.  This 
stopped  the  strike  at  once,  and  for  five  months  the  Commis- 
sion took  evidence  and  heard  the  parties  to  the  controversy. 
The  award  was  finally  made  and  signed  by  employers  and 
employees.  The  agreement  was  to  continue  in  full  force  for 
three  years,  and  its  terms  were  respected.  By  getting  to- 
gether the  parties  to  the  controversy  learned  more  about 
each  other,  and  better  feeling  has  prevailed  ever  since. 

Colorado  Disturbances. 

There  were  severe  Colorado  disturbances  in  1903,  involv- 
ing four  of  the  fifty-nine  counties  of  the  State.  There  had 
been  trouble  for  many  years  among  the  miners,  and  at 
Cripple  Creek  there  were  great  outbreaks  in  1903-04.  The 
miners  deported  non-union  men,  and  the  Citizens'  Alliance 
retaliated  by  deporting  union  men.  Murders,  boycotts,  im- 
prisonments, and  injunctions  followed.  During  fourteen 
years  the  State  spent  more  than  $1,000,000  for  military 
campaigns  to  quell  riots.  The  last  of  these  grave  troubles 
was  in  June,  1904,  but  the  effects  of  none  of  them  have 
really  been  of  national  importance.  It  is  now  known  that 
the  most  violent  and  lawless  labor-union  men  in  the  country 


16  HISTORIC     STRIKES 

infested   the   Colorado   districts,  going  later  to.  Nevada   to 
continue  their  work  of  tearing  down  and  disrupting  society. 

Other  Strikes. 

Early  in  1906  it  was  seen  that  the  year  would  be  one  of 
defeat  for  labor.  In  the  case  of  the  larger  strikes  the  unions 
met  with  grave  repulses,  because  their  strikes  were  unwise, 
and  in  most  cases  they  were  not  approved  by  national  labor 
organizations.  Early  in  the  year  a  six-months'  strike  in 
the  Fall  River,  Massachusetts,  cotton  mills  was  settled 
through  the  mediation  of  Governor  Douglas,  and  later  a 
second  battle  was  avoided  by  the  raising  of  operatives ' 
wages.  In  March  a  strike  on  the  Subway  and  the  elevated 
roads  of  New  York  was  easily  defeated  in  six  days,  as  it 
was  not  approved  by  national  organizations  of  employees, 
which  have  often  proved  a  conservative  influence. 

Chicago  Teamsters. 

One  of  the  long,  bitter,  and  disastrous  strikes  of  recent 
times  was  that  of  the  Chicago  teamsters,  May  to  July  20, 1905, 
which  was  attended  by  great  violence.  It  began  as  a  sympa- 
thetic strike  to  aid  garment  workers  who  had  practically  lost 
their  strike  before  the  teamsters  sought  to  aid  them.  Nine- 
teen persons  were  killed,  and  several  hundred  were  wounded 
during  the  battles  that  accompanied  this  war.  The  team- 
sters were  finally  defeated,  never  having  had  public  approval. 
Some  persons  close  to  the  scene,  reporters  and  other 
observers,  have  said  that  this  was  the  most  foolish,  corrupt, 
and  cruel  of  recent  strikes;  others  have  even  charged  that 
it  was  managed  in  the  interest  of  competing  companies  who 
corrupted  several  labor  leaders.  Jurors,  editors,  and  inves- 
tigators now  agree  that  there  was  corruption  on  both  sides. 
In  other  strikes  at  Chicago  it  has  been  charged  that  tho 
unions  and  their  employers  have  now  and  then  combined 
to  rob  the  public. 

Unions  to  Remain. 

In  1905  President  Roosevelt,  in  his  annual  message  to 
Congress,  declared  for  the  second  time  that,  in  his  opinion, 
trade-unions  have  come  to  stay,  and  that  they  must  be  dealt 
with  as  permanent  factors.  He  recommended  legislatioo 


HISTORIC     STRIKES  17 

concerning  child  labor,   the  work  of  women,   and  germane 
matters. 

Reduced  Efficiency. 

Some  of  the  strongest  union  men  are  planning  to  increase 
the  efficiency  of  labor.  They  recognize  the  fact  that  every 
time  a  union  "lets  down  the  bars"  and  brings  in  non-union 
competitors,  after  their  surrender,  the  standard  of  efficiency 
is  lowered,  and  that  a  union  card  is  no  longer  what  it  was 
in  the  old  days — a  badge  of  competency.  In  other  words, 
the  increased  union  membership,  recruited  largely  from  in- 
competents of  the  surrendering  'scab'  class,  is  not  the  mem- 
bership that  would  come  under  strict  conditions  in  times  of 
industrial  peace. 

Elements  of  Weakness. 

There  are  several  practices  that  make  for  weakness  in 
labor  organizations,  one  of  the  principal  ones  being  the 
limitation  of  apprentices.  In  seeking  to  prevent  a  surplus 
of  journeymen  in  the  various  trades,  unions  curtail  the 
number  of  those  who  are  permitted  to  learn  trades.  If  a 
young  man  wants  to  learn  this  or  that  trade  he  is  confronted 
by  prohibitory  rules  that  forbid  the  teaching  of  more  than 
a  limited  number  of  apprentices,  wherefore  the  cry  that 
unions  of  foreigners  prevent  American  youth  from  master- 
ing trades.  In  some  quarters  this  feature  has  alienated 
many  citizens  from  sympathy  with  unionism. 

In  Pittsburg  a  few  years  ago  it  was  discovered  that  a 
mechanic  who  insisted  on  doing  practically  as  much  work 
in  eight  hours  as  he  had  formerly  done  in  nine  was  "knocked 
in  the  head"  and  otherwise  assaulted  until  he  agreed  to 
curtail  his  output.  Many  similar  instances  have  been 
reported,  lately  a  case  in  Oakland,  California.  It  is  the 
opinion  of  some  of  the  shrewdest  union  men  that  the  barring 
of  American  youth  from  the  opportunities  of  life,  and  the 
tyrannical  curtailment  of  work,  coupled  with  the  growing 
inefficiency  of  union  men,  sound  the  death  knell  of  the  union- 
ism of  to-day.  Others,  among  them  students  of  marked 
ability,  foresee  a  reformation  of  abuses  and  the  strengthen- 
ing rather  than  the  disintegration  of  unionism. 

Recent  Decisions. 

In  some  recent  English  cases,  and  in  one  celebrated  case 
in  Connecticut,  individual  members  of  unions  were  sued 


18  HISTORIC     STRIKES 

with  the  union  as  an  organization  for  damages  inflicted  by 
violent  strikers.  Heavy  judgments  were  rendered  and 
enforced  against  the  defendants.  It  is  the  opinion  of  Carroll 
D.  Wright  that  such  cases  will  act  as  deterrent  forces,  modi- 
fying both  the  number  and  severity  of  strikes.  Some  of  the 
more  conservative  union  leaders  believe  the  decisions  have 
been  a  benefit  to  their  cause,  tending  to  correct  abuses  and 
prevent  violence. 

Noted  Settlements. 

Vice-president  Baldwin,  of  the  Southern  Railway  (1895), 
treated  with  the  six  thousand  employees  operating  over  the 
four  thousand  miles  of  the  system.  The  men  were  growing 
weary  of  the  reduction  of  wages  that  had  been  in  force 
since  1893.  After  conferring  for  some  days,  examining 
receipts  and  expenses,  and  investigating  all  the  facts  sub- 
mitted by  Vice-president  Baldwin,  the  men  were  entirely 
satisfied,  and  there  was  no  strike.  Some  little  points  of 
friction  were  adjusted,  and  conciliation  left  all  parties  feel- 
ing friendly.  Capitalists  recognized  Baldwin's  ability  and 
gave  him  the  presidency  of  a  vast  enterprise,  and  labor  has 
since  built  a  monument  to  his  memory.  His  far-sighted 
policy,  coupled  with  high  ideals  along  the  line  of  the  Golden 
Rule,  furnish  a  wonderful  object-lesson  for  the  emulation 
of  other  captains  and  privates  of  industry. 

Former  Mayor  Abram  S.  Hewitt,  of  New  York,  was 
once  met  by  his  men  from  the  '  works/  which  had  been  run- 
ning at  a  loss.  Wages  had  not  been  satisfactory  for  a  long 
time,  and  the  men  were  chafing  under  a  reduction  of  ten 
per  cent,  therefore  they  demanded  more  money. 

"Boys,  send  in  an  auditor  and  examine  our  books/'  said 
the  Mayor,  and  they  did  so.  The  result  was  they  withdrew 
their  demand,  and  offered  to  stand  a  further  cut  of  ten 
per  cent,  but  Mr.  Hewitt  rejected  the  invitation.  The  old 
Mayor  used  to  laugh,  after  that,  and  say,  ' '  Do  you  think 
you  could  get  up  a  strike  in  our  works  now?"  His  policy, 
like  Baldwin's,  resulted  in  industrial  peace  and  "good 
understanding"  thereafter. 

Strikes  to  End. 

Carroll  D.  Wright,  for  many  years  United  States  Com- 
missioner of  Labor,  and  a  careful  student  of  every  phase 
of  industrial  troubles,  says  he  realizes  that  the  era  of  strikes 


HISTORIC     STRIKES  19 

is  passing  away,  or  will  pass  away,  adding:  "I  believe  that 
the  good  sense  of  the  workingmen  of  this  country,  co-operat- 
ing with  the  good  sense  and  wisdom  of  the  employers  of 
labor,  will  see  to  it  that  strikes  do  not  occur  and  that  the 
public  is  not  inconvenienced.  All  strikes  are  uneconomic  in 
their  results,  but  the  strike  problem  can  not  be  solved  by 
courts,  by  laws,  by  military  force,  or  by  any  drastic 
measure. ' ' 

Light  Ahead. 

A  study  of  the  evolution  of  industry,  a  growth  always 
accompanied  by  the  multiplication  of  trades  that  demand 
culture,  gives  hope  of  a  brighter  industrial  future  than  most 
men  ever  picture. 

Poverty  is  no  new  thing.  It  was  old  at  ancient  Nippur, 
and  Nippur  was  old  almost  ten  thousand  years  before 
Christ.  Coming  to  modern  eras  and  conditions,  one  need 
do  no  more  than  read  Macaulay's  "History  of  England "  for 
vivid  and  accurate  accounts  of  the  pauperism  and  famine 
that  confronted  our  ancestors. 

The  history  of  human  vocations,  according  to  Doctor 
William  T.  Harris,  late  United  States  commissioner  of 
education,  goes  back  to  a  time  when  men  were  miserable 
slaves  whose  total  energies  were  required  to  wrest  from 
nature  their  subsistence.  There  was  a  time'  when  ninety- 
nine  per  cent  of  the  men  were  absolutely  compelled  to 
struggle  for  food,  which  consisted  largely  of  fish  and  game, 
or  to  manufacture  rude  clothing  and  other  primary  creature- 
comforts  for  themselves  and  those  immediately  dependent 
on  them.  To-day  a  large  portion  of  the  world's  workers 
are  adding  the  element  of  beauty  to  that  which  was  pri- 
marily merely  useful.  Many  others  minister  to  the  moral 
and  intellectual  wants  of  the  race.  Man  will  be  emancipated 
from  the  slavery  of  harsh  industrial  conditions  some  day, 
but  not  until  human  invention  and  power  of  combination 
shall  reach  the  point  where  machinery  can  produce  a  plenti- 
fulness  of  the  necessaries  of  life  at  a  very  low  cost.  Then 
there  will  be  less  slavery,  less  intense  devotion  to  pursuits 
that  render  men  and  women  mere  machines.  When  that  day 
comes  the  race  will  demand  more  workmen  of  a  high  degree 
of  culture  in  the  higher  vocations.  In  other  words,  the 
future  human  race,  the  type  of  man  now  in  process  of 
growth,  will  evolve  some  day  into  a  more  perfect  being,  a 


20  HISTORIC     STRIKES 

creature  of  more  complex  wants,  and  he  will  need  the  assist- 
ance of  his  fellows  in  esthetic  pursuits  for  which  there  will 
be  adequate  remuneration.  The  improved  race  will  demand 
more  artists,  more  scientists,  more  musicians,  and 
others,  in  complex  and  unforseen  .  pursuits  wherein 
they  will  serve  the  ends  of  culture.  All  the  avail- 
able nooks  and  crannies  of  nature  will  some  day  be  explored 
by  the  new  man,  the  man  whose  ancestors  are  now  warped 
by  narrow  manual  pursuits,  who  are  now  the  mere  grooms 
or  attendants  of  machines,  or  of  their  more  greedy  and  suc- 
cessful fellow  men.  These  arts  open  the  gates  of  a  bright 
future,  and  promise  to  make  men  free;  but  a  continual 
readjustment  of  vocations  is  in  progress,  and  all  laborers 
who  are  mere  l hands7  must  work  at  a  continually  growing 
disadvantage. 

Dr.  Harris  puts  the  case  in  a  forcible  way,  bringing  his 
keen  analysis  to  bear  on  the  problem.  According  to  him, 
the  progress  of  the  world  in  inventions  necessitates  a  con- 
stant, and  sometimes  abrupt,  ascent  of  mere  hand  labor  into 
intelligent  directive  power. 

Higher  Vocations. 

The  ruder  pursuits  minister  directly  to  the  satisfaction  of 
the  wants  of  food  and  the  coarser  forms  of  clothing  and 
shelter.  The  higher  vocations  relate  to  the  satisfaction  of 
man's  spiritual  wants,  and  the  supply  of  means  for  luxury 
and  amusement.  The  number  of  persons  required  in  these 
higher  spheres,  especially  in  the  production  of  articles  of 
luxury  and  of  ornamental  goods,  is  increasing  rapidly.  In 
the  United  States  and  Great  Britain  five  in  a  hundred 
laborers  are  actually  pursuing  vocations  that  have  for  their 
object  the  addition  of  ornament  to  what  is  already  useful, 
or  the  direct  ministration  to  culture  in  some  form.  When 
the  ratio  is  reversed  and  only  five  in  a  hundred  are  needed 
to  provide  the  crude  necessary  articles  of  consumption,  and 
the  remnant  of  society  may  devote  itself  to  the  higher  order 
of  occupations — then  the  economic  problem  will  be  solved. 

The  trend  of  social  history,  according  to  the  eminent 
expounder  of  Hegel — Doctor  Harris — now  becomes  apparent,, 
in  the  light  of  man's  destiny.  It  is  not  merely  the  emanci- 
pation of  man  from  thralldom  to  nature.  The  plentiful 
supply  of  his  material  wants  would  be  only  a  curse  if  there 
did  not  remain  a  high  state  of  activity  in  the  work  for  the 


HISTORIC     STRIKES  21 

spiritual  perfection  of  man.  In  the  civilization  of  to-morrow 
it  is  apparent  that  there  will  be  a  higher  average  of  educa- 
tion, and  a  greater  activity  in  the  fields  of  honorable  achieve- 
ment along  the  lines  of  rational  endeavor,  than  to-day. 
Without  such  exertion  we  should  be  no  better  than  the  lazy 
tribes  of  the  tropics. 

Everybody  wants  food,  clothing,  and  other  creature- 
comforts;  all  want  articles  of  luxury,  means  of  protection, 
and  the  ministry  of  culture,  each  in  proportion  to  his  degree 
of  civilization.  The  new  demands  must  call  for  services  of 
the  cultured  along  these  higher  lines. 

Machinery  a  Blessing. 

The  more  application  of  machinery  the  fewer  laborers  are 
needed  in  the  departments  where  a  narrow  or  special  educa- 
tion will  suffice,  and  the  more  the  laborer  is  required  to 
have  a  general  and  humane  culture.  This  doctrine  contains 
the  cheering  gospel  of  final  emancipation  from  drudgery. 
The  only  condition  attached  to  it  is  that  all  shall  be  edu- 
cated, and  this  condition  is  indeed  the  best  part  of  the 
gospel.  It  makes  it  the  business  of  society  and  of  every 
member  of  it  to  see  that  each  and  all  are  educated.  It 
becomes  the  interest  of  the  selfish  man  as  well  as  the  ideal 
of  enlightened  philanthropy  to  have  each  member  of  society 
so  intelligent  that  he  can  find  his  proper  vocation,  his  place 
of  labor  in  the  higher  order  of  cultured  human  occupations. 
To  be  able  to  do  only  by  hand  what  a  machine  can  do,  is  to 
be  a  pauper,  is  to  work  at  a  continually  increasing  disad- 
vantage. Invention  makes  obsolete  the  skill  of  previous 
generations — of  immediately  preceding  years,  even — and 
those  who  are  too  ignorant,  too  poor,  or  too  old  to  readjust 
their  employments  and  learn  new  trades  are  not  able  to  earn 
a  living. 

Production  Increases. 

We  are  each  year  increasing  our  capacity  as  producers. 
Machinery  is  manufacturing  more  and  more  of  the  things 
which  supply  man's  manifold  wants.  The  manual-labor 
problem  will  be  largely  solved  when  the  majority  shall  be 
excused  from  the  arts  of  production,  and  when  only  a  few 
persons,  comparatively,  shall  be  required  in  those  manual 
handicrafts  that  create  the  ruder  necessaries,  which  bring 
forth  the  products  of  everyday  life.  As  before  indicated, 


22  HISTORIC     STRIKES 

the  world's  workers  will  then  be  called  into  fields  of  greater 
intellectual  and  spiritual  activity. 

A  few  years  ago  we  read  of  the  destruction  of  this  and 
that  machine  by  angry  peasants  in  Europe,  and  by  farm 
laborers  in  America;  yet  there  is  no  greater  error  abroad 
than  the  common  one  which  assumes  that  machinery  has 
supplanted  human  labor.  Machinery  is  not  the  enemy  of  the 
laboring  man.  Its  grand  work  has  scarcely  more  than  begun, 
yet  it  has  brought  many  benefits  to  the  laborer.  It  has 
already  raised  the  scale  of  living,  by  decreasing  the  cost  of 
manufactures,  and  it  makes  necessary  the  employment  of 
far  more  workers  than  were  employed  before  its  advent. 
Countless  thousands  of  men  and  women  are  now  engaged 
in  useful  industries,  industries  that  were  unknown  before  the 
era  of  machines.  Let  us  resort  to  facts:  The  census  of  the 
United  States  for  1880  shows  that  185  per  cent  more  people 
were  employed  in  manufactures  in  1880  than  in  1850,  and 
that  they  were  employed  at  an  increase  of  300  per  cent  in 
wages.  To  be  specific,  there  were  957,059  persons  employed, 
in  1850,  as  against  2,732,595,  in  1880.  They  received  $236,- 
755,464,  as  wages,  against  $947,953,795,  in  1880.  During 
that  era  the  population  did  not  keep  pace  with  the  marvelous 
increase  of  wages,  for  it  scarcely  more  than  doubled. 

Let  any  person  who  doubts  these  facts,  or  who  fails  to 
comprehend  them  in  their  abstract  and  somewhat  repellant 
statistical  form,  consider  some  of  the  marked  advances  in 
the  economic  progress  of  the  world.  The  revelations  in  this 
line  are  striking  indeed.  Almost  every  invention  made  in 
modern  times  has  called  for  the  manufacture'  of  machinery, 
which,  being  completed,  has  required  a  large  number  of 
mechanics  to  operate  it.  The  world  is  full  of  trades  formerly 
unknown,  alive  with  the  busy  hum  of  marvelous  industries 
unseen  by  our  forefathers.  I  submit  a  few  of  the  trades 
that  have  benefited  mankind  by  enlarging  the  sphere  of 
activities  for  men  and  women  alike,  by  giving  employment 
to  a  vast  army  of  workers.  The  reader  will  doubtless  be  able 
to  add  largely  to  my  list,  but  the  following  outline  shows 
how  trades  have  been  multiplying  during  a  few  generations: 
Chemical,  nautical,  and  astronomical  instruments,  spinning 
and  weaving  of  all  kinds,  from  delicate  fabrics  of  silk,  et 
cetera,  to  carpets  and  heavier  textiles,  improvements  in  cut- 
lery manufacture,  fire-arms,  musical  instruments,  steam- 


HISTORIC     STRIKES  23 

boats,  steamships,  railroad  trains  and  railroad  machinery, 
paper  manufactures  of  all  kinds,  marvelous  printing  and 
lithographing  presses  and  machinery,  telegraph  and  its  allied 
industries,  electrical  machines,  including  telephones  and  pho- 
nographs, typewriting  machines,  gas  machinery,  clocks,  many 
marvelous  forms  of  the  spinning  jenny,  power  looms,  bolt, 
nut,  and  nail  works,  wood-working  machinery,  great  bridges 
1  and  other  structures  of  the  new  era,  photography  and  allied 
arts,  sewing  machines,  boot  and  shoe-making  machines,  infinite 
iron  and  metal  processes,  hydraulic  and  mining  machinery, 
scores  of  agricultural  inventions  that  have  changed  the  face 
of  nature — and  thousands  of  machines  that  were  absolutely 
undreamed  of  in  the  old  days  of  ox  teams  and  hand  power. 

It  is  a  far  cry  from  the  days  of  beacon-lights  on  the 
hillsides  of  colonial  America  to  the  wireless  telegraph  on 
ships  and  mountains,  from  the  pony  express  of  our  western 
frontier  to  the  modern  automobile  and  vestibuled  railroad 
trains,  but  every  turn  of  the  great  wheel  of  progress  is  along 
the  lines  indicated  in  the  foregoing  analysis. 


PART  II. 

Fundamentals 

OF 

Street-car  Control 

BEING  A  DISCUSSION  OF 

The  Legal  and  Economic  Principles 

of  Public  Service  as  Applied 

to  Rail  Highways 

-BY- 
LEIGH   H.   IRVINE 


CROWN  PUBLISHING  COMPANY 

26  Clay  Street 

SAN  FRANCISCO 

— 1907  — 


Reprinted  from  "SIXTY  MILLION  SLAVES,"  Copyright  1888,  LEIGH  H. 
IRVINE,  and  from  the  San  Francisco  Trade  Journal,  by  permission  of 
The  Calkins  Newspaper  Syndicate. 


FUNDAMENTALS   OF   STREET-CAR   CONTROL 

EXPLANATORY. 

This  argument  was  made  by  me  two  decades  ago,  though 
the  reader  might  be  led  to  believe  that  it  was  inspired  by  the 
present  .street-car  strike  in  San  Francisco. 

Twenty  years  ago,  in  Kansas  City,  Mo.,  I  was  a  law  part- 
ner of  Frank  P.  Blair,  now  an  eminent  Chicago  attorney. 
In  connection  with  Mr.  Blair  and  Judge  Ashby,  of  Omaha, 
Nebraska,  I  made  a  thorough  study  of  the  railway  problem 
in  its  legal  and  economic  aspects.  That  study,  then,  pursued 
for  more  than  two  years,  led  me  to  conclude  that  ownership 
of  the  highway — the  track  itself — should  be  vested  in  the 
government,  and  that  the  ownership  and  operation  of  cars 
fall  within  the  province  of  private  industry.  Inherently  a 
highway,  or  an  exclusive  franchise  for  its  use,  should  never 
be  the  subject  of  monopoly.  The  years  intervening  have 
served  to  confirm  me  in  the  opinion  originally  formed. 

My  views  were  set  forth  in  detail  in  a  series  of  lectures 
that  were  published  in  book  form  in  1888,  under  the  title, 
" Sixty  Million  Slaves;  a  Lawyer's  Plea  for  the  People. " 
Some  economists  and  several  public  men  of  note  indorsed 
the  deductions  as  sound  and  practical,  and  the  late  M.  J. 
Becker,  chief  civil  engineer  of  the  Panhandle  System,  pro- 
nounced the  plan  of  a  joint  operation  of  trains  over  a  public 
track  a  practical  scheme;  in  fact,  there  were  several  compa- 
nies operating  over  a  long  track  near  Columbus,  Ohio,  at 
the  time,  and  each  company  was  simply  leasing  the  right  of 
way  over  the  road  with  the  privilege  of  using  it  at  specified 
times  in  conjunction  with  other  companies. 

The  substance  of  the  .argument  that  follows  is  from 
i '  Sixty  Million  Slaves ' J  and  from  an  address  delivered  before 
the  University  Extension  Club  at  Sacramento  in  1898.  As 
the  discussion  covers  fundamental  problems,  it  is,  with  some 
additions,  apropos  of  the  present  situation  in  San  Francisco. 

LEIGH  H.  IRVINE. 
26  Clay  Street,  San  Francisco,  May  20,  1907. 


FUNDAMENTALS   OP   STREET-CAR  CONTROL  3 

UNDER  modern  social  conditions  strikes,  boycotts,  lock- 
outs, and  other  economic  diseases  are  multiplying  with 
increasing  frequency.    Federations  of  labor  on  the  one 
hand   and  great  combinations  of  capital  on  the  other  dis- 
courage   the    middleman,    disarrange    industry,    and    plunge 
society  into  bitter  strifes. 

Though  the  courts  originally  regarded  strikes  as  unlawful 
conspiracies  they  now  grant  not  only  the  right  to  strike,  but 
to  employ  pickets.  One  result  of  such  decisions  is  that 
strikes  are  now  conducted  as  great  industrial  wars,  being 
directed  by  national  commanders. 

While  these  signs  of  social  maladjustment  multiply,  the 
class  struggle  predicted  and  agitated  by  socialists  seems  to 
come  closer  every  day.  Thoughtful  men  who  are  neither 
millionaires,  labor  agitators,  nor  socialists  naturally  begin 
to  ask  where  this  strife  is  to  end.  The  stern  capitalist  of 
courage  may  call  for  state  militia  or  Federal  troops  when  the 
public  peace  is  overthrown,  for  example,  during  a  street-car 
strike,  and  a  president  of  the  determination  of  a  Cleveland, 
ignoring  an  Altgeld's  gubernatorial  protest,  protects  Chi- 
cago's street-cars  by  sending  an  escort  of  Uncle  Sam's  sol- 
diers. Thereupon  the  socialists  and  the  public  ownership 
party  demand  municipal  ownership,  and  with  every  new 
strike  there  is  renewed  discussion.  Thousands  of  writers  and 
speakers  travel  over  the  old  roads  that  lead  nowhere,  and 
each  outbreak  finds  the  problem  as  far  from  solution  as  ever. 
Must  the  strife  always  continue?  Must  the  remedy  forever 
remain  a  mystery? 

Not  Socialism. 

I  agree  with  Professor  Seligman,  of  Columbia  University, 
that  it  is  possible  to  advocate  government  ownership — espe- 
cially municipal  ownership — of  some  forms  of  property, 
without  incurring  the  imputation  of  socialism;  and  if  the 
right  line  of  demarkation  is  drawn  there  is  a  field  for  public 
ownership,  in  co-operation  with  private  industry  in  the  opera- 

i  of  street-cars  in  cities.  It  is  my  purpose  to  analyze  the 
uestion  of  public  ownership  as  applied  to  the  street-car 


4  FUNDAMENTALS   OF   STREET-CAR  CONTROL 

problem,  and  to  show  that  the  public  ownership  of  the  high- 
way itself,  as  distinguished  from  the  public  ownership  and 
operation  of  the  cars,  is  consistent  with  the  modern  system 
of  industry,  now  conducted  along  the  conservative  and  recog- 
nized lines  of  individualism.  In  other  words,  a  city  may 
justly  own  the  iron  highways  within  its  territory,  may  also 
own  the  power  plants  by  which  cars  are  moved,  and  may 
charge  track  toll  and  power  rentals  to  competing  operating 
companies,  all  this  without  interfering  with  the  rights  of 
private  capital,  and  without  overthrowing  the  present 
economic  system  of  industry.  This  distinction  preserves  the 
rights  of  all  classes,  and  overcomes  the  objection  that  munici- 
pal operation  would  involve  the  hiring  of  a  vast  army  of 
men. 

It  is  now  generally  recognized  by  economists  that  govern- 
ment may  "properly  do  what  the  private  individual  can  not 
do,  will  not  do,  and  ought  not  to  do."  [Seligman.]  The 
private  ownership  of  any  kind  of  a  highway,  the  exclusive 
use  of  that  which  of  right  belongs  to  the  public,  this  comes 
fairly  within  the  limitation  of  what  private  individuals  and 
corporations  ought  not  to  do. 

Railroads  Are  Highways. 

The  Supreme  Court  of  the  United  States  has  decided  sev- 
eral times,  as  have  the  supreme  courts  of  many  states,  that 
railways  are  public  highways.  In  the  case  of  the  Pensacola 
Telegraph  Company  (96  U.  S.,  page  1),  Chief  Justice  Waite 
held  that  government  has  the  undoubted  "power  to  make 
a  government  monopoly  of  the  management  of  railways  and 
the  telegraph,  and  to  appropriate  to  its  use  the  existing 
lines  of  both." 

Under  the  law  of  eminent  domain  private  property  must, 
under  the  compelling  force  of  public  demand,  be  surrendered, 
after  just  compensation,  for  the  benefit  of  the  majority. 
Every  person  who  has  ever  seen  a  condemnation  jury  at 
work  knows  what  may  be  accomplished  when  a  railroad  com- 
pany, in  its  quasi  public  character,  needs  a  man's  farm  for 
its  switch  yards. 


FUNDAMENTALS   OF   STREET-CAR   CONTROL  O 

In  some  of  the  earlier  legal  battles  defendants  who  op- 
posed the  right  of  railways  to  condemn  their  lands  argued 
that  railroads  were  private  ways  because  they  were  so 
operated  that  none  but  their  owners  could  use  them,  and  be- 
cause every  vehicle  not  owned  by  the  company  was  barred 
from  the  railroad;  but  the  courts  have  uniformly  held  that 
railroads  are  public  highways  whose  privileges  are  granted 
for  a  time  to  companies,  subject,  always,  to  the  superior 
rights  of  the  public;  and  that  if  railroads  do  not  exist  by 
public  necessity  the  titles  by  which  the  companies  hold 
many  of  their  franchises  can  be  set  aside  as  absolutely  null 
and  void.  Judge  Jere  Black  announced  this  doctrine  with 
singular  force  and  clearness. 

Though  the  cases  cited  pertain  largely  to  interstate 
railroads,  the  principle  and  the  reasoning  apply  with  even 
greater  logic  to  the  case  of  street  railways  in  modern  cities, 
where  interruptions  of  traffic  by  the  ill-arranged  affairs  of 
private  owners  inflict  sharp  and  disastrous  inconvenience 
and  losses  upon  the  public. 

Highways  Belong  to  All. 

Highways  are  of  great  antiquity.  They  existed  in  an- 
cient Egypt,  in  Peru,  and  in  Ceylon,  where  they  reached  a 
high  degree  of  perfection.  In  Judges  we  find  accounts  of 
highways  and  by-ways,  and  Rome's  Via  Aurelia  and  Flam- 
minian  Way  are  as  famous  as  the  military  roads  of  Caesar 's 
day.  Alexander  von  Humboldt  speaks  of  the  marvelous 
roads  of  the  Incas,  mountain  highways  over  the  Andes,  con- 
structed by  forgotten  generations.  But  whether  we  read  of 
ancient  highways  in  India,  or  of  those  described 
in  Exodus  or  in  the  annals  of  excavated  Troy,  or 
even  of  the  appearance  on  the  highway  of  the  chariot  built 
by  Erichthonius  at  Athens  1486  years  before  Christ,  we  find 
one  condition — that  highways  were  always  owned  by  the 
people,  and  from  the  earliest  times  (down  to  the  invention 
of  the  railroad)  both  civilized  and  savage  men  have  always 
guarded  their  highways  from  private  ownership.  Whether 
a  bridlepath  or  a  chariot  way,  the  road  always  remained 


6  FUNDAMENTALS   OF    STREET-CAR   CONTROL 

the  heritage  of  the  multitude.  Men  of  all  races,  in  all  ages, 
have  had  the  right  to  pass  and  repass  over  the  public  thor- 
oughfares, which  have  been  open  to  men,  women,  and  chil- 
dren whether  walking,  driving,  or  riding.  Horses,  mules, 
asses,  oxen,  camels,  elephants,  dromedaries,  reindeer,  Arctic 
dogs,  and  even  African  ostriches  ridden  by  jet  black  own- 
ers, have  been  free  to  travel  over  the  highway,  as  free  as 
the  snow-skaters  of  Lapland  or  Holland,  as  free  as  an 
Oriental  palanquin  bearer  or  a  modern  chauffeur  racing 
through  the  highways  of  an  American  city.  With  the  ad- 
vent of  railroads  the  public  was  ruled  off  the  track.  Then 
began  our  monopolies  and  our  strikes,  interrupting  land  loco- 
motion with  modern  vehicles. 

A  study  of  the  history  of  highways  shows  that  a  com- 
prehensive definition  characterizes  them  as  such  modifica- 
tions of  the  surface  of  the  earth  as  will  enable  it  fitly  to 
receive  that  vehicle  furnished  by  the  civilization  of  the  era. 
The  path  of  a  nomad  and  the  steel  rails  of  a  modern  trolley 
system  are  inherently  a  free  means  of  land  locomotion.  The 
franchises  and  special  privileges  granted  to  owners  of  steel 
highways  mark  the  first  overthrow  of  the  right  of  the  public 
to  use  the  roads.  It  is  interesting  in  this  connection  to  note 
that  the  first  charters  issued  to  American  railroads  made  it 
plain  that  the  exclusive,  right  to  own  and  operate  trains  on 
the  highways  was  denied.  The  selling  of  exclusive  fran- 
chises was  a  later  invention  of  the  money  kings  who  made 
the  railroad  era  of  modern  civilization  in  America. 

Public  Must  Own  the  Track. 

The  restoration  of  the  highway  to  the  public  is  the  remedy 
for  the  evils  that  come  from  strikes,  because  the  track  is 
the  key  that  enables  the  owners  of  street-car  lines  to  lock 
out  the  public  and  dictate  the  terms  under  which  men  will 
be  hired  to  operate  cars.  Take  the  track  from  the  magnate, 
and  the  giant  that  makes  it  possible  to  block  our  commerce 
while  he  fights  with  unions  is  tied  and  helpless.  Abolish 
private  ownership  of  the  rail  highway,  permit  the  operation 
of  cars  by  competing  companies,  and  the  problem  is  solved. 


FUNDAMENTALS   OF    STREET-CAR   CONTROL  7 

It  is  clear  by  all  the  legal  authorities  that  in  temporarily 
abandoning  their  right  to  build  railways  the  state  govern- 
ments merely  delegate  to  their  transient  agents — the  railway 
companies — the  right  to  carry  on  a  great  public  necessity. 
By  parity  of  reasoning  we  may  substitute  city  for  state, 
street  -railway  for  steam  railway,  and  argue  that  the  fre- 
quency of  strikes  and  the  paralysis  of  industry  by  the  stop- 
ping of  street-car  service  justify  the  condemnation  of  the 
street-car  tracks,  wires,  and  power  houses  under  the  law  of 
eminent  domain.  That  step  once  taken  nobody  could  ever 
again  bar  the  public  from  its  right  of  locomotion  in  modern 
vehicles,  over  modern  highways. 

The  fact  that  private  companies  have  bought  our  high- 
ways in  almost  every  American  city  is  an  evidence  that 
public  officers  have  never  clearly  understood  that  cities 
might  have  declined  to  go  into  the  business  of  operating 
street-cars  and  still  have  retained  the  absolute  right  to  say 
who  shall  operate  them,  and  that  none  shall  prevent  their 
operation  so  long  as  anybody  owns  a  car.  Even  if  it  be 
deemed  wise  to  limit  the  general  use  of  tracks  to  one  or  two 
companies,  the  right  to  allow  almost  unrestricted  access  dur- 
ing emergencies  should  always  be  retained  by  the  public. 

The  character  of  the  railway  is  such  as  to  make  it  im- 
practicable for  everybody  to  run  his  own  vehicle  thereon, 
but  it  is  possible  to  permit  a  limited  number  of  operating 
companies  to  compete  over  a  track  owned  by  the  public;  it 
is  possible  to  say  that  no  highway  shall  ever  be  sold  to 
anybody  or  permitted  to  earn  money  for  any  corporation. 
To  preserve  the  freedom  of  the  masses  the  highways  of 
every  character  must  be  as  remote  from  private  ownership 
as  were  the  wagon  roads  over  which  the  pioneers  crossed 
the  continent  in  '49.  The  track  itself  must  forever  remain 
free  from  the  clutch  of  monopoly. 


-20 


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